Would you pay £18 for this as a main in a posh restaurant?

[Flowerwinter]

Ordered what I thought was a salmon fillet from the mains, this is what arrived…it was £18. I’m gutted.

One of those restaurants you're going to leave hungry.

And poor...

For £18.00 I'd want the table laid correctly and I'd want at least a fish knife.

If it had called it sashimi or ceviche, I would have expected a portion of that size for that price.

Ceviche maybe, certainly not sashimi.

It's so badly presented that it pisses me off just looking at it. As a PP said- it's just an overpriced decoration.

On the upside though- thanks to the pp who posted the blog link. I love a food and travel blog.

@Flowerwinter

It’s a hotel/champagne restaurant in Derbyshire. It was on the menu as a main course for £18. I understand it’s sushi grade etc but I’d expect at least a piece of bread with it or some salad?! I did query if it was a starter and he said ‘it’s a main, as it’s on a big plate’.

Cavendish hotel?

So, as part of a 3 course meal, i think that amount of salmon is fine. I think we are way over served most of the time and in many restaurants, if I have 3 courses (and who can resist, right?) i leave feeling absolutely stuffed. In posh restaurants, with smaller portions, after 3 courses I leave not feeling hungry anymore and happy with that. Having said this, you know that you can ask for more, right? Even in Michelin starred restaurants, if you say that you are still hungry after, they will bring you more food.

Having said all of this, you have a case that the blog and photo on the website suggest that your portion size was small in this case.

Why come on here to slate them though? Seems a bit harsh.

That restaurant and hotel looks lovely and i'm not put off going there.

I’d be fine with this as a main in a really nice restaurant.

If it’s sashimi, sashimi grade salmon is more expensive than the salmon you would buy to cook.
They look like quite large pieces to me.
Think of what you’d pay for 3 plates of sashimi in Yo Sushi, which is pretty much a fast food restaurant. Food volume would be on a par, price would be the same, but this is beautifully presented, and would have a different set of overheads to Yo.

Given that the menu on their website doesn't seem to offer starters or mains, that plate really needs to come with the hunk of bread that was shown in the blog photo.

I’d have sent it back and left/not paid. What are they going to do? hopefully take the hint and reprice the menu

Ah, so it's gin curred salmon, cucumber and seaweed.

It's a bloody starter on their FT & LP menu, followed by sea bream with teriyaki sauce and Asian slaw. As a main. Not a great menu if you don't like fish, or hope not to feel hungry. Great if you love fish and want to avoid carbs.

They way they seem to do it is to have two sizes for each dish, so a main is actually a double sized starter. It looks like a nice place to dine, and especially good if you're trying to avoid carbs. The soup sounds like the most filling option, as it comes with sourdough bread.

I'd be pissed off with that. I'd have said something.

Some place tried to do this sort of thing to me before, I ordered a ploughmans. They brought me some cheese on a slate with some pickle and chutney. When I asked for the rest of it they were like well what else do you expect? So I said bread, salad, apple, maybe some new potatoes, a bit of pork pie etc. They brought me a tiny bowl of leaves, no cucumber or cherry tomatoes etc, and a slice of bread. At the end, they still tried to charge full price so my DH said we aren't paying that for a fucking cheese sandwich 😂

@NutellaEllaElla

Given that the menu on their website doesn't seem to offer starters or mains, that plate really needs to come with the hunk of bread that was shown in the blog photo.

I was a bit at the blog photo though. You have a japanese inspired dish (it looked lovely in the blog!) then sourdough bread???!!!

Fusion cooking at the slightly bizarre. I am trying to think what should have come with it but am at a loss though so I'm no use.

The OP's photo has irritated me unreasonably though. No uniformity of the (what we now know is cucumber) cut cucumber slices. It looks sloppy.

I'd have wanted just more of everything salmon-y. The mains portion sizes were small though in the blog - the linguine dish was teeny.

Hmmm....£18 for a large dirty plate with some tiny pieces of raw fish and some weeds.
No, I would NOT have paid for that.

Presumably this is a posh place and not Spoons? 🤣

I don’t think the price is out of line for a seafood bar, but the presentation is awful. In the blog picture the salmon is sliced beautifully and it looks appealing, in the OP’s version it looks like someone just cut it up roughly. Cured salmon should be served in thinish slices, not chunks. With cured salmon I would expect also bread, I think, but not veg or potatoes.

Did you order off the child's menu?

@JayAlfredPrufrock

To be fair there is quite a lot of salmon.

I suppose it is.. If you're an otter.

Hope you ate before you went out for that expensive dinner.

the menu description would have been quite flowery, which was obviously inaccessible language to the OP who has been left disappointed due to the misunderstanding of what they were ordering.

Wow, so op is stupid aswell as hungry?

I've had a couple of meals like that recently. It's so disappointing. Fine if you want order nibbles, starter, main, sides and dessert and pay £80 for the pleasure.

I like to order a proper plate of food that includes veg or salad. I don't want to order three prawns and two bits of watercress and eat it in five seconds.

I like nice food and don't mind paying a bit more but I'm starting to think I actually prefer eating at home. I think I am turning into my Mum!

‘Sushi grade’ is a totally meaningless term. Sashimi and sushi are expensive partly because of the price of the fish and partly because of the time and skill required to prepare it, and if it’s a small kitchen with only one sushi chef then if they’re out for any reason then those items are off the menu. That is not sashimi if it has been cured, and it has clearly not been skilfully sliced and prepared as sashimi.

It does look as though what would normally be served and what OP was served were different things so on that front, YANBU.

But.

It’s not uncommon for high end restaurants to serve a dish like this as a main (and no, it’s not a dirty plate, it’s quite clearly the glaze...) and possibly at a higher price. I agree with @Upinflames regarding the flavours, intensity of sauces etc - you’re paying for gastronomy and fancy cheffiness. If you want something that comes with plate piled high, sides and hunks of bread, go somewhere else because that’s not what these sorts of places are about. You’d not go to a Heston Blumenthal restaurant and complain that nothing was served with chips...

The sharing option at the bottom of the menu talks about bread, salad and potatoes coming with the mains.

That sounds more reasonable and much much better value as you get 4 different things and the sides for £70.

If the meal doesn't come with sides and it doesn't list them to order separately, it's not reasonable to serve that amount of food as a main. I'm the world's lightest eater, especially in the evening as I eat more earlier in the day, but even I would want more food than that.

Plenty of real chefs on Saturday Kitchen serve up bigger mains that don't include chips or bread.

This is just poncetastic.